What One Writer's Wrought

A version of this article was published May 31 at Medium .   On May 26, the New York Times summarized the night-time, back-roads death of a Black man, a 49-year-old barber named Ronald Greene — who, when he finally expired from numerous and savage injuries, was surrounded by “at least six” white cops — like this: “Relatives were initially told that he had died [on May 10, 2019] from injuries he sustained in a crash after he failed to stop for a traffic violation outside Monroe, Louisiana, according to a lawyer for the family.” Ronald Greene, AUBM killed by Louisiana Troopers In their u se of the passive voice ( relatives were told ), the Times omits mention of who lied to Greene’s family about how he died. We are expected (this is also the passive voice; in the active voice, I would've said: The Times expects us …) to assume the obvious, that of course the police lied to the family. This use of the passive is widespread, and sometimes good reasons exist for its use. B...

This image has been going around the internet since at least 2017.   It's often described as the two-mile-wide stump of an ancient tree.   It's actually a geological feature and (as I found out earlier today), it's called Jugurtha's Table . A little research also turned up the fun fact that butte , mesa , and plateau are all words for land formations (small, medium and large) of this type , with steep walls and a flat top, created over millennia by erosion .   My next question was: WHO TF WAS JUGURTHA? N ear the end of the second century BCE, Jugurtha (aka "Yugurten") was a king of Numidia , an area of n. Africa which today includes western Algeria and eastern Tunisia. He had allied with the Romans in part to secure his throne, but for six years had also struggled to evict the Roman occupiers. (Tunis was built on the ruins of Carthage, at one time Rome's greatest enemy.) After losing his first war with the Romans, Jugurtha had been made to surrender his...

I got a bite! I reeled in and I pulled back, and finally I hauled 'em ashore, and I'm happy to report that the City of Austin didn't wiggle or flop around too much. OK, that's as far as I'm taking that metaphor. My friends, I am tickled to inform you that I started a J O B with the City of Austin's Public Health Department on Monday, the first of March: a full-time (40 hours a week) although temporary (minimum six months) jay, oh, bee, baby!! I've been assigned to a vaccination center to work as an usher at Wheelchair Reception, whose principal task will be telling arrivals where to go. What I think the folks in HR liked most on my résumé was how much previous experience I've had telling people where they can go.   It's clearly a position for someone like me who likes people, who's easy-going but responsible, and who's able to put at ease anyone feeling a little anxious. Before taxes the annual salary is in the mid-30s, which is al...

33 years ago today, legendary civil rights icon and activist Bayard Rustin passed away. He was 75. Dig this! One of his most important contributions was introducing the Gandhian concept of non-violence to the civil-rights movement. He "provided Dr. King with a deep understanding of nonviolent ideas and tactics at a time when King had only an academic familiarity with Gandhi." "A close advisor to Martin Luther King and one of the most influential and effective organizers of the civil rights movement, Rustin was affectionately referred to as _Mr. March-on-Washington_ by A. Philip Randolph" (the founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters).   Rustin's having survived most of the 20th century while living in the United States as an openly gay black man also adds a layer of the incredible to his incredible life-story.   The involvement of his grandmother, Julia Davis Rustin, in the NAACP meant that Rustin's childhood home was often visited by movement lumi...

It is exceedingly rare these days to come across anywhere the idea that we — our species, our friends and family, you reading this, and me the writer (all members of Homo sapiens ) — are, literally, animals. This essence of our animality (our being mammals, and primates) is like a shameful secret which we have been urged or conditioned to deny and forget. Christianity told its followers ( Gen 1:26 ) to go out and dominate the fishes, the birds, the cattle, and (just to be clear) the whole world (not forgetting that which creepeth), all of which quite conveniently cleared the way for the arrival of capitalism, which invited its practitioners to go out and plunder: treat everything in the world as nothing more than a source of riches. Go forth and divine a plan to make money from mountaintops, riverbeds, ocean floors, and genetic inheritances. Lately I’ve been reading Becoming Wild: How animal cultures raise families, create beauty and achieve peace , by Carl Safina (2020)...

Sometimes, opinions around an issue change only a little bit (if at all) over a long period of time. Then again, certain factors come together to cause a rapid shift in attitudes about a subject. A great example of the latter is attitudes Americans have held toward gays in general, and toward same-sex marriage in particular. The changes in both both were rapid and profound. In 2004, 60% of Americans were opposed to same-sex marriage. Fifteen years later, 60% were in favor ! A similar change was taking place in the 90s, when the vast majority of Americans held generally unfavorable views about homosexuality. But as more gay people came out of the closet, and more and more Americans realized that they knew someone who was gay, a similar flip-flop in polling numbers was recorded: what had been widespread antipathy morphed quickly into a generalized tolerance, if not outright acceptance. A similar seismic shift, not around sexuality, but about race is now underway, but this tim...

The Nearly Nine! things you can do from home to advance the cause of anti-racism Including suggestions from musician, human-rights advocate, and general bad-ass Benjamin Mertz -- -- -- -- -- The ongoing global pandemic is one reason you might have not joined the ranks of protestors around the count ry , who’ve been pouring into the streets lately of cities big and small. But many ways exist to advance the cause of social justice, including actions you can take from your own kitchen table. For example: 1. Let someone know how much you appreciate their stand against racism. These days, our media is flooded with the stories of folks who are doing amazing things , sometimes taking big risks while striving to build a more equitable world. Reach out to them, and thank them for attempting to make a difference . History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling...

I took a few minutes yesterday to clean up the inside of my truck. I returned to the house with a few items, including a Gideon’s bible, which for tens of thousands of miles had ridden between the rear passenger-side headrest and the rear window. As I walked back inside, I had two thoughts. Wow, it’s been a really long time since I’ve opened a bible. And, D uring these days of pandemic and upheaval, I wonder what kind of a message might be glimpsed (or divulged) in a randomly selected passage. And so verily did I open the good book, alighting mine eyes upon the page, whereupon did I readeth: And Abimelech fought against the city all that day. He captured the city and killed the people who were in it, and he razed the city and sowed it with salt. When all the leaders of the Tower of Shechem heard of it, they entered the stronghold of the house of El-berith. Abimelech was told that all the leaders of the Tower of Schechem were gathered together. And Abimelech wen...